Our rocket club had a rare Sunday-only launch today, and I managed to sneak over there for a couple of hours this morning (we've got family visiting from out of town).

I travelled very light, only bringing two rockets and a handful of engines. Pity too, because the day was hot and humid and the air was almost calm, meaning straight up and straight down. A perfect day for altitude.

Click here for a picture of the two rockets.

The first rocket (the yellow one) is a prototype of a kit being produced by my buddy Rich of Vertical Force Rocketry. He gave me a pre-production kit to build so I could give him feedback on the instructions and materials, and then make some test flights. It's a ring-fin model called the Odin's Spear and folks, this bird rocks! If you're looking for something new to build after a couple of Estes kits, I very much recommend this rocket.

The second rocket (white with black nose) was an experiment. Someone at NARAM last summer built a single finned rocket that relies on spinning to remain stable (fin detail here). I took pictures of it and built my version to play with. The original basically unravelled the cardboard tube on the third flight (serious torque!), so mine has two tubes, one inside the other for extra strength. Thinking back on it, his might have kicked the entire motor mount out the back to deploy the chute, making the nosecone permanently mounted up front. That's important to remember as you read further on. It's a fun rocket, spinning like a ballerina on handfuls of speed washed down by double-espressos.

It was sorta successful. So all told I made five flights:

1. Odin's Spear - A8-5 - When the motor burned out you could hear a whistle! Stays low enough for schoolyard launching, chute right at apogee.

2. Odin's Spear - B6-6 - Another arrow-straight boost, very quick and gets great altitude for a B motor. The whistling happened as she slowed down before deploying the chute, again right at apogee.

3. Nameless spinning prototype - D12-5 - About 20 feet up she was spinning and the nosecone came off. Tipped unstable and landed in the grass where the ejection charge went off. No damage.

4. Nameless spinning prototype - D12-3 - I added some masking tape to the nosecone shoulder to make it harder to some loose, but it did anyway some 50 feet up. Chute deployed normally this time and she also spun on the way down. Minor fin damage, can be repaired (although I don't know if I'll bother).

5. Odin's Spear - C6-7 - Zoooooom! Almost lost sight of it way up there, but saw the chute deploy, once again right at the top. Another brief whistle as she slowed down. My longest walk of the day for recovery, maybe 50 yards.

It was almost noon and I had to get going, so I made a quick stop at the Performance Hobbies trailer (gotta love a hobby shop that comes to the flying field!) and picked up a pair of AeroTech H128 White Lightning motors and an AeroTech H165 Redline motor. I'll fly them in my big rockets another day. Said goodbye to my friends and left. I briefly talked to frequent Rocket Jones commenter Russ, who was arriving just as I was heading out.

Short and sweet, that's how to describe my day flying rockets. Big fun.

Posted by: Ted at 02:52 PM | category: Rocketry
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1 It was great seein' ya again Ted even if only for a moment.I knew I had seen that spiral fin design somewhere before.Wish I could have seen it go.Anyhow,glad you had a blast.
My day went pretty well,also.Got up my 24 mm Big Red Max on a D12-7,my Yellow Jacket on a C6-7 and my Goony Max on a C6-5.I also,got around to lofting that CMR Mantra boost glider clone for the first time on a Quest B6-2.It was an awesome boost.However,it wanted to do the falling leaf thing on the way down as apposed to actually flying.Oh,well!At least it didn't slay anyone.HA!The first step has been taken and now I just need a nice high spot to test fly and balance it from.I think it'll fly well after some tweeking.
Speaking of gliders those 1/2A's really performed well today.I didn't expect that kind of alt.Might have to give it a whirl.
Besides that my Goony did a lawn dart due to just the nose popping without pulling the chute.It hit a soft spot so there was no damage.Had to walk out past the High Power pads to get it though.Other than that everything was cool.
Along about 2 or so we where invaded by a load of Boy Scouts(I think)but besides them the crowd stayed pretty small all day.Seemed as if they where the ones with a lot of Astrocams.
One killer cool flight that you missed was someones flying saucer on one of the new G20's.That thing has the most major burn time of any motor I have ever seen.It just kept burning and burning and burning...............It SEEMED like abot 7-8 seconds at least.I'll be flying the Really Really Mean Machine on one of those for sure.In fact a motor like that is what I designed it for.Long and ssssssmokey!Picked up a couple of 29mm/BT-60 centering rings for that today,too.The rear most centering ring is set in up to the fin tab.I will use those to make a flush mounted rear bulkhead so that I can rig up a positive motor retention system.should have thought of it before buuuuuut.......you know about hindsight.
Anyways,I spent a good deal of time yapping with people,talking Mopars with Ken and just getting roasted.I never knew you could burn on top of a tan.Go figure!
Well,see ya next time.

Posted by: Russ at June 05, 2005 11:19 PM (ObxzR)

2 It figures that when the vast bulk of the launches are going on I'm busy doing check-ins and hardly get to see any of them

Posted by: Maelstrom at June 06, 2005 12:05 PM (z62e3)

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